The Afghan Soldiers We Left Behind – Now Russian Commandos?

“We thought they might create a special program for us, but no one even thought about us…

They just left us all in the hands of the Taliban.”

One US-trained Afghan commando, reacting to being abandoned by American forces fleeing in August of 2021.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden share in one sad and significant failed US effort: the horrific and hasty withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan on August 30, 2021, after a war that lasted 20 years. Although the negotiations for withdrawal began during the Trump administration, the Biden administration continued those policies and implemented the negotiated plan, albeit on an accelerated basis when it was clear that US forces were unprepared for the last-minute Taliban escalation of their occupation efforts. Here’s how that US determination played out:

“In February 2020, the Trump administration and the Taliban, without the participation of the then Afghan government, signed the US–Taliban deal in Doha, Qatar, which stipulated fighting restrictions for both the US and the Taliban, and provided for the withdrawal of all NATO forces from Afghanistan in return for the Taliban's counter-terrorism commitments. The Trump administration's US–Taliban deal, and then the Biden administration’s decision in April 2021 to pull out all US troops by September 2021 without leaving a residual force, were the two critical events that caused the collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). Following the deal, the US dramatically reduced the number of air attacks and deprived the ANSF of a critical edge in fighting the Taliban insurgency, leading to the Taliban takeover of Kabul on 15 August 2021.” Wikipedia. The Taliban quickly took total control of Afghanistan.

By effectively negotiating directly with the Taliban with zero participation by Kabul government, we cut the rug out from under the Afghan government we were purportedly supporting. We pulled out without providing shelter and protection to local Afghan allies; we left Afghan officials, interpreters, military personnel and civilians who cooperated with us high and dry. Very few of those who fought along side of us, and those who supported us otherwise, made it out… and even fewer made it to the United States. The withdrawal was too forced, too hasty, and the post-withdrawal efforts well below what would have been necessary to protect those Afghans who loyally worked with us. Tales of post-withdrawal Taliban arrests, torture and execution of many of those we left behind continue to haunt that horrific departure.

We are now watching Russia reaching out to those former Afghan military fighters (trained by us), many of whom have fled to pro-Russia Iran, to join as mercenaries in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Especially, the highly prized soldiers we trained as cutting-edge commandos. Blowback. We’ve been here before. The CIA armed and trained insurgent groups, known collectively as the Mujahideen (which included local and foreign troops), fighting the Soviet Union and their satellite state, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, in a nine-year war (1979-1989). After expelling the Soviets from Afghanistan, those same American-trained Mujahideen joined forces with Osama bin-Laden to wreak havoc on the United States, culminating in the 2001 attack on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers in New York. How our own Afghan war began!

This time, the current blowback is a direct challenge to US support of Ukraine. Writing for a November 2nd report from the Associated Press, Bernard Condon tells us: “[Three] former Afghan generals told the Associated Press… the Russians want to attract thousands of the former elite Afghan commandos into a ‘foreign legion’ with offers of steady $1,500-a-month payments and promises of havens for themselves and their families so that they can avoid deportation home to what many assume would be death at the hands of the Taliban.

“‘They don’t want to go fight — but they have no choice,’ said one of the generals, Abdul Raof Arghandiwal, adding that the dozen or so commandos in Iran with whom he has texted fear deportation most. ‘They ask me, ‘Give me a solution. What should we do? If we go back to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill us.’ ’

“Arghandiwal said the recruiting is led by the Russian mercenary force Wagner Group [known for recruiting mercenaries from Russian prisons]. Another general, Hibatullah Alizai, the last Afghan army chief before the Taliban took over, said the effort is also being helped by a former Afghan special forces commander who lived in Russia and speaks the language.

“The Russian recruitment follows months of warnings from U.S. soldiers who fought with Afghan special forces that the Taliban was intent on killing them and that they might join with U.S. enemies to stay alive or out of anger with their former ally.

“A GOP congressional report in August specifically warned of the danger that the Afghan commandos — trained by U.S. Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets — could end up giving up information about U.S. tactics to the Islamic State group, Iran or Russia, or even fight for them.

“‘We didn’t get these individuals out as we promised, and now it’s coming home to roost,’ said Michael Mulroy, a retired CIA officer who served in Afghanistan, adding that the Afghan commandos are highly skilled, fierce fighters. ‘I don’t want to see them in any battlefield, frankly, but certainly not fighting the Ukrainians.’” The Russian deny the effort, calling reports of such recruitment “crazy nonsense.” But facts are facts.

The Afghan civil war was never winnable, generally the result experienced by foreign powers who seek to intervening in civil wars in other nations. The French learned the hard way in 1954, when French Legionnaires were slaughtered in the battle at Điện Biên Phủ… and France was shoved out of Indochina (which included Vietnam). Later in Algeria. The United States learned its lesson with the fall of Saigon on March 29, 1973, ending the Vietnam War with a nasty defeat of our attempts to prevent a communist takeover. It’s one thing when a nation cries for help from a foreign invasion – like: most of Europe as Hitler’s forces attacked or Ukraine when Putin’s troops marched to annex that country – versus siding with a faction during a local civil war. We have a bad habit of abandoning those we supported… when we do not win. And winning civil wars in distant and rugged lands is nothing we are particularly well-suited to do.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I do not know why I continue to be surprised at the level of ignorance of our leadership when they embark on regime support or change in some other countries’ civil war.